“In all, the FBI fielded 203,086 requests on Black Friday, up from the previous single-day highs of 185,713 last year and 185,345 in 2015. The two previous records also were recorded on Black Friday...”

The report continues with previously reported details about NICS, failures to detect criminals, missing records, the need for more resources, and surging gun sales, which have slowed since Obama, but continue under Trump.

Virtually every lamestream “news” outlet on Saturday carried an identical story -- as if Guinness World Records was the only reason for this report. Every single story -- Google it for yourself -- used identical facts, spin, and lack of any real relevance. This demonstrates the stories have one source -- a government “release” -- and no independent reporting. Federal agents managed this "news." Reporters were complicit.

The FBI set a record for checks! The FBI had to pull staff from other crucial tasks to manage the management of innocent shoppers! The federal agencies spent enough money to beef up the system from last year’s record, to handle this year’s record! Here, lapdogs, take your handout. Everyone did.

Missing was the blatantly obvious -- were any criminals caught, any crime stopped, by this over-hyped, ultra expensive, democrat-promoted system? Not one word addressed that -- the supposed reason the thing exists. Not one story posed the question. It is a 100% error of omission or misguided spin. Hooray for our side, we set a record! Did we do any good? Who cares, we don’t report on that. Stories demanding more background check something have flooded the news outlets for months previously.

Readers can count on more stories soon calling for more checks. As soon as a psycho or jihadi is unaffected by the system (because it is flawed at its core), and people are murdered (called a “shooting” by the "news"), calls for more checks will appear simultaneously, by coincidence.

The checks delayed innocent people from buying guns without due process, providing identifying information of innocent people exercising their constitutional rights to federal police agents. It also registered every single gun purchased, with the cost and record keeping totally absorbed by firearms dealers, required by law to do and retain the paperwork (in addition to electronic data sent to a central-command office in West Virginia). The FBI can arrest any dealer who does not comply, saving the FBI from the grueling, expensive task, and giving them tremendous power, which they like.

“For more than 20 years the system has served as the centerpiece of the government’s effort to block criminals from obtaining firearms,” according to every published report scanned for this article.

Every type of criminal known however -- drug dealers, gang bangers, psychos, muslim jihadis, armed and dangerous fugitives, domestic abusers, mass murderers -- all of them, remain armed. At what point will the system be declared a failure and closed?

No report on the system’s actual successes (criminals stopped and imprisoned) has been promoted. Because there isn’t one. Prof. John Lott’s study shows false positives rate (innocent people falsely denied) in the 99% range. The math below bears this out. Total denials hover at about 1%, but arrests based on denials are not made. Click here to see why: http://www.gunlaws.com/BradyArrestsLacking.htm. It's stunning -- direct quotes from BATFE, FBI and the White House and more.

Even the government’s own study of convictions from the system shows a number too small for most people to pronounce. For example --

If you see a reporter, ask, “How many people found by NICS are arrested?” and “How many people found by NICS are convicted of anything?” After the deafening silence, ask, “Should your report include that, and if not, are you reporting the full story fairly?” You know the answers. They are not.

I stand by my frequent admonition: “If it’s in the ‘news’ and it’s about guns, it’s probably 100% wrong.” At best, it’s as deceptive as an outright lie.

Comments

I highly doubt that gun control groups want current laws to be enforced. It might just result in some degree of improvement - and that would work against their registration/confiscation goals!

The most any gun law can do is force criminals into the underground illegal market. This could be done with a few minor adjustments to current law:

1) Aggressively prosecute all criminals who lie on 4473 forms and make sure the are sentenced to prison. Notify local authorities so they can bring state charges and/or violate their parole or probation.

2) Prosecute all straw purchasers and make prison time mandatory. These people all have clean records, therefore the threat of prison should have some effect.

3) Make sure that all states and agencies report convictions and committals to NICS. Failure to do so should result in the loss of federal funds.

4) Open the NICS system to private sellers by requiring all FFLs to conduct checks of buyers in private sales for a reasonable set fee. LET ME BE CLEAR - I AM TALKING ABOUT OPTIONAL CHECKS, NOT REQUIRING CHECKS ON ALL OR EVEN SOME PRIVATE SALES!!! Most of us do not want to sell to a prohibited person. There are lot's of ways we can do this. We may know the person well enough and long enough to be sure that they are not a felon or otherwise prohibited. They might be able to show us a C&R license, a CCW permit, or a badge. Optional access to the NICS system would simply be one more resource that we could optionally choose to use. BATFE already publishes a manual on how dealers may do this, so it would be nothing new.

None of the above would stop criminals from getting guns. It will make it more difficult - how much more difficult is unknown. However, if BATFE actually does their job and focuses upon illegal sales, the above would likely do as much as any of the gun grabbers draconian proposals.

About the Author

Freelance writer Alan Korwin is a founder and past president of the Arizona Book Publishing Association. With his wife Cheryl he operates Bloomfield Press, the largest producer and distributor of gun-law books in the country. Here writing as "The Uninvited Ombudsman," Alan covers the day's stories as they ought to read. Read more.